When God Allows the Sword: Empire, Love, and the Misuse of Romans 13
Why Paul’s Words Cannot Be Used to Sanctify Authoritarian Rule
The Weaponization of Romans 13
Romans 13 has a long and troubling history of being used to sanctify oppressive power. Repeatedly, it has been ripped from its context to be used as a cudgel to make Christians bow the knee to the authoritarian instincts of the fearful, the greedy, and the power hungry. Any text in Scripture ripped from its context can be used to say and mean anything.
Rome used this passage to insist that Christians bow to the power of the empire. The church allowed the empire to call church councils and demand consensus on issues. It became an arm of the Western Roman Empire, performing violence within its boarders to transform the empire from within.
Monarchs in early modern Europe, during the reformation, invoked Paul’s words to defend the “divine right of kings,” arguing that resistance to a king was rebellion against God. It became the root of new mythologies and rituals where the Church itself conveyed the power and authority of God into the person of the monarch. The Kings then waged war on one another sowing chaos and confusion across the continent. They ignored that Paul said: “The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the assemblies of the saints” (1 Corinthians 14:32-33). They embraced the violence and confusion of the whims and wills of the various kings to subject the world to violence and self-aggrandizement for their own political empowerment. This confusion alone shows that they were not the faithful servants of God they claimed to be.
During the American Civil War, slaveholding preachers cited Romans 13 to demand obedience from enslaved people and to condemn abolitionists who challenged the system. When we forget that we live in Babylon, and pretend that God blesses and condones the work of the state and the alienation, brutality, and extraction it demands, it is only a short step to allowing the torture, abuse, and enslavement of other human beings.
In twentieth century Germany, some theologians sympathetic to the Nazi regime appealed to the same passage to claim that Christians were bound to obey the state even under Hitler. The state of the church was so corrupt that many churches came together to write the Theological Declaration of Barmen in 1934 to reject the power of the Nazi government over the church.
Similar arguments have appeared in modern politics whenever governments seek to suppress protest or justify harsh immigration policies, again quoting Paul’s line that “the authorities that exist have been established by God.” Christian nationalists are using it to bow the knee to their new authoritarian master.
In each case the passage is lifted out of its ethical context and turned into a theological shield for power, even though the wider biblical witness repeatedly warns that rulers often misuse authority and that God’s people must ultimately obey God rather than human rulers.
The Contradiction in the Authoritarian Reading
The authoritarian reading of Romans 13 cannot be the intended meaning. Paul himself disobeyed Roman authorities and demanded to have an audience with the Emperor to plead his case. He was arrested, beaten, and eventually executed by Rome for disobeying their authority. If Paul believed in the authoritarian interpretation then he would not have opposed and disobeyed Roman authorities to the point of execution.
If the authoritarian reading is correct, then Jesus deserved to die because he did not bow to the Roman state that was colonizing Judea and Galilee, and instead preached a kin-dom that would get him killed. Remember, above the cross they labeled his crime: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.
None of the other apostles seemed to know this reading either. Peter, James, John, and all of the other apostles that we have stories about rejected the power of Rome and continued teaching despite orders not to, and all of them met their end being executed by the Roman authorities.
If this authoritarian reading is correct, then we have to condemn Jesus and all of the apostles as apostates who defied the will of God in working against, resisting, and defying the Roman state in which they lived. One cannot call themselves a Christian, holding to the power and inspiration of the New Testament, and believe that.
The actions of Jesus and the apostles show that Romans 13 meant something different. A plain reading of the text shows the same. The authoritarian reading of Romans 13 is a plague that has haunted Christianity since its foundation.
So, Romans 13 is not an authoritarian passage telling us to blindly obey those in power. What does it really say? What did it mean in its original context? And what should it mean to us today?
Reading the Passage Itself
Romans 13:1-10
1. Let every soul be in subjection to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those who exist are ordained by God.
2. Therefore he who resists the authority, withstands the ordinance of God; and those who withstand will receive to themselves judgment.
3. For rulers are not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Do you desire to have no fear of the authority? Do that which is good, and you will have praise from the same,
4. for he is a servant of God to you for good. But if you do that which is evil, be afraid, for he doesn’t bear the sword in vain; for he is a servant of God, an avenger for wrath to him who does evil.
5. Therefore you need to be in subjection, not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.
6. For this reason you also pay taxes, for they are servants of God’s service, attending continually on this very thing.
7. Therefore give everyone what you owe: if you owe taxes, pay taxes; if customs, then customs; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
8. Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
9. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other commandments there are, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
10. Love doesn’t harm a neighbor. Love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.
When we read Romans 13 out of context, it seems to support the authoritarian reading. Every soul is subject to higher authorities. Whoever resists authority withstands the ordinances of God. Rulers are not a terror to good works. These all sound like they condone the state. Phrases like, “He is a servant for God,” and “he does not bear the sword in vain,” sound like approval.
If you have not read Romans 12 and thought that this passage just sprang from Paul’s mind without context, it does sound a lot like he is giving his approval to everything that the Roman state does. Not just his approval, but the approval of God to all of their actions.
Importantly, most authoritarian readings of this passage stop at verse 7 and pretend that verse 8 starts an entirely new subject that is completely unrelated to what came before it. It is important to remember that the chapters did not exist until 1227 CE. Up until that point, these letters were completely one block of text. The verse numbers were not added until 1551 CE. Neither were put there by Paul, and none of them reflect Paul’s original intent in writing this letter.
What they do show is that there was a concerted interest in having this passage be read in isolation, away from the context in chapter 12. The authoritarian state of the kings had been using these verses to justify their divine authority for centuries by this point. Thus, it seemed like the natural place to make a break in the text, ensuring that people would see it as the beginning of a new subject and separate it from what came before.
When we add ideas to the Bible that the writers did not know about, like inspiration, inerrancy, or univocality, we are doing harm to the text because we are saying that we have the ability to interpret it and that it is not allowed to speak for itself.
Context is vital to understanding what the scripture means and how it plays its part in the complex tradition that arose from the Jewish faith through its transition into Christianity.
The Immediate Context: Romans 12
In Romans 12, Paul is laying out his ethical framework by which Christians should live under an authoritarian empire. The world is harsh and violent, but that does not mean that we should be. We are called to live in a kin-dom that is not of this world and thus runs off different rules.
In a modern context, we might say that Paul is contrasting the operating system of the Roman world with the operating system of Christianity. The same software does not run on both. But since we were raised in the world and not in the kin-dom, which is not of this world, then we have to learn the ways of the kin-dom so that we can follow the way of Jesus.
Romans 12:14
14. Bless those who persecute you; bless, and don’t curse.
Paul reminds us that it is our purpose and duty as followers of the way of Jesus to bless those who persecute us, to bless them and not to curse them. What does that mean?
Paul tells the community to bless those who persecute them and refuses to soften the command. He repeats the instruction so no one misses the point. When people treat us with hostility, our instinct is to respond with anger, condemnation, or revenge. Paul pushes in the opposite direction. Followers of Christ are called to respond by speaking good, not harm, over those who oppose them. This is not pretending the persecution is acceptable or ignoring injustice. It is a refusal to mirror the hatred directed at us. The community is called to break the cycle of retaliation by choosing words and actions that seek good rather than harm, even toward those who actively treat them as enemies.
Romans 12:17
17. Repay no one evil for evil. Respect what is honorable in the sight of all men.
Here, Paul warns the community not to repay evil with evil. When someone harms us, the most natural reaction is to strike back in kind, to balance the scales by giving them what they gave us. Paul rejects that instinct. Instead of reacting he calls believers to act and focus on what is honorable and good in the sight of everyone. The point is not weakness or pretending harm does not matter. It is about refusing to let the behavior of others dictate our own character. The community of Christ is meant to live in a way that is visibly shaped by integrity and goodness, even when they are treated unjustly. By doing what is right rather than retaliating, they show a different way of living that others can clearly see.
Romans 12:19
19. Don’t seek revenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to God’s wrath. For it is written, “Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord.”
Paul tells believers not to take revenge for themselves when they are wronged. The urge to settle the score can feel powerful and even justified, but Paul says that vengeance does not belong to us. Instead, he calls the community to step back and leave room for God’s justice. God sees the harm that has been done and will deal with it in the right time and in the right way. By letting go of the need to personally repay wrongdoing, believers refuse to let anger and retaliation rule their actions. Trusting God with justice frees the community to focus on living faithfully rather than becoming consumed with getting even.
Romans 12:21
21. Don’t be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Paul closes this section with a final warning and a clear alternative. When we respond to evil with more evil, it begins to shape us and pull us into the same destructive pattern. In that sense, evil wins by drawing us into its way of acting. Paul urges the community not to let that happen. Instead, they are called to confront evil by doing good. Acts of goodness, mercy, and integrity break the cycle that evil tries to create. Rather than being controlled by the harm done to them, believers push back against it through lives that reflect the goodness of God. In this way, good becomes the force that ultimately overcomes evil.
In Romans 12, you can clearly see the stress that the persecuted church was under. Four times, Paul has to remind people in different ways not to seek revenge, not to repay evil with evil, and to constantly be a voice and body acting for good in this cosmos.
For Paul, the church was an active agent working in this world as the body of Christ to bring healing and restoration. He called this work the Ministry of Reconciliation and saw it as the core of what we were supposed to be doing as a church. It is difficult to do acts of reconciliation in a world filled with so much violence and oppression.
After saying these things, Paul then continues to talk about the nature of those in authority and what they are supposed to do and how we are supposed to live. In understanding that, you can see how the passage should be read through verse 10, because this is all a prolonged meditation on the love of God and how we as the church are meant to enact it in the world, even in such dire circumstances as the oppressive persecution of an empire that sees people only for what they can bring to it.
Paul’s World Under Empire
It is not the calling of the Church to control the lives of others or to police their actions. The church exists to heal the world and to teach a different and better way to live within it. We have to remember that Paul knew little to nothing about democratic principles. While the Roman Empire had once been a republic, and the Greek city-states had done their experiments with democracy before this, the empire had washed all of that away, and Paul’s entire life was lived under its boot and control.
The state existed and did whatever it wanted to do. There was no concept of revolution, only revolt. There were no democratic processes to change the government. The emperor declared and the empire did. The Roman Senate existed almost as a vestigial member, a portion that the Empire had evolved past but retained because it did not feel the need to abolish it.
Paul could not envision a world where Christians revolted because they would have had to engage in the imperial violence, revenge, and retaliation that are all components of war, all of which Paul saw as incompatible with the work of the church. The only option available to him in the context in which he lived was to see the empire like any other force of nature. It is a storm that rages and blows, and all we can do is learn how to live in such a way that we survive and make it through.
If anything, Romans 13 is more of a plea not to revolt against the state and give it all the excuses that it needs to truly eradicate the nascent Christian movement than it is anything else.
When Paul says that the state and authorities are servants of God, it does not make them righteous agents of the Lord. Jesus tells many parables about servants who were given tasks in the world, and often in those stories, only one of three actually carry out what they were asked to do.
A servant has free will, which does not mean that they are doing their master’s bidding. Even seeing the state as a quasi-natural force, Paul refers to them as servants of God because they have a purpose to unfold. Their purpose, as Paul states quite clearly, is to stop violence.
In the context of the Roman Empire, that is almost laughable. They were an institution built on violence, from violent oppression to violent enslavement, all the way to the violent crucifixion of those who were not Roman citizens. Paul’s statement about authorities is as much a rebuke of Rome as it is a lesson in how to live underneath them. If all the state worries about is order, then not behaving in a disordered manner would be the best way not to come to their attention.
This idea works well in something like the Roman Empire but does not within a civic democracy. Once we introduce the notion of freedom of speech and expression, things that Paul had no conception of, the duty of a Christian within a state apparatus changes dramatically.
This passage is an admonition to Romans living in the city of Rome under the Roman Empire. They had no power to overthrow the state, and even if they were to rise up in revolt, there were not enough of them to succeed in taking over the Empire. Further, the sheer volume of violence that they would have to participate in to maintain that power and control would deny everything that Jesus and God command of us in Scripture.
When there is no hope of change, the best we can do is not become a target of the violence being rained down on so many. Paul concludes this section with an admonition to love our neighbors as ourselves. That this is the whole of the law. This is not the law as it was proclaimed and prosecuted by the Roman state. This is the law of the kin-dom that we are subject to. This is the true higher law, which he calls the law of the Spirit, that frees us from sin and transforms us into the children of God.
Paul’s Apocalyptic Horizon
It is important for us to realize that Paul is living in a fatalistic world. Paul wrote this letter somewhere between 56-58 CE. Roman governors used executions and crucifixions to keep order. Rome maintained its control through fear, severe punishment, heavy taxation, and military force.
Leading up to this time, Rome had decimated many messianic movements. Judas of Galilee led a revolt around 6 CE against Roman taxation after Judea came under direct Roman rule. Roman forces suppressed the uprising and its leaders were killed, though the movement continued underground. Theudas promised followers that he could miraculously part the Jordan River. Around the 40s CE, the Roman governor Cuspius Fadus sent troops who attacked the group, killed many followers, and had Theudas beheaded, displaying his head publicly. These movements were typically dealt with swiftly and violently by Roman authorities, who used execution, crucifixion, and the killing or scattering of followers to prevent any challenge to imperial control, just as they had done to Jesus.
Paul truly believed that Jesus would return any minute. He, like so many in the early church, still believed that the kin-dom would break out across the world when Jesus returned bodily to judge the world and create a new order. All the faithful had to do was survive long enough to see that happen.
In this very letter, Paul makes several claims about the near future. He teaches that a day of judgment is coming when God will judge the world through Christ (Romans 2:5–16). He says that creation itself is waiting to be renewed and freed from suffering when God’s people are fully revealed (Romans 8:18–23). Just before this passage, he describes a future turning point in which the full number of Gentiles will come into God’s people and Israel will also experience salvation (Romans 11:25–26).
Immediately after this passage, he said:
“Do this, knowing the time, that it is already time for you to awaken out of sleep, for salvation is now nearer to us than when we first believed. The night is far gone, and the day is near. Let’s therefore throw off the deeds of darkness, and let’s put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:11–12).
He believed that all the church had to do was collect the required number of Gentiles into the movement, then the world will end. Any day now this will all be over, so do not rock the boat. Romans 13:1-10 is not about the nature of government, it is about the imminence of the return of Christ and the need to convert enough people to make that happen.
In light of all that, this passage in Romans 13 reads very differently.
A Contextual Paraphrase of Romans 13:1-10
With all that in mind, let us do a contextual paraphrase that brings in the passage that came from chapter 12 and the subtler meaning of the Greek text:
1. Let every person live in an ordered and cooperative way within the structures of authority that exist, for authority itself does not arise from nowhere. The structures of authority that exist are part of the ordering of society under God.
2. Because of this, the one who sets themselves against these authorities resists the social order that God has allowed to exist, and those who create such resistance will bring consequences upon themselves.
3. Rulers are not meant to terrify those who do what is good, but those who do what is harmful. If you want to live without fear of those in authority, then practice what is good and you will receive their approval. In this way they serve God’s purposes for the common good.
4. But if you do what harms others, then fear may be appropriate. Authority does not carry the sword for nothing. It serves as an instrument of justice, restraining wrongdoing and bringing consequences upon those who harm others.
5. Because of this, it is wise to cooperate with these structures, not merely out of fear of punishment but out of a clear conscience.
6. For this reason you also pay taxes. Those who govern are devoted to maintaining the public order that allows society to function.
7. Give each person what is due: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
8. Do not remain in debt to anyone, except for the debt that can never be fully repaid: the obligation to love one another. The one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
9. For the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet, and any other commandment, are all summed up in this one word:
10. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the true fulfillment of the law.”
The duty we owe is paying our taxes, doing no harm, and nonviolent resistance. If an authority tells us to do something that is wrong, the law of love, also called the law of the Spirit is superior.
If we defy the authority, we know that as long as it has the power to punish us, we are in danger, but true love casts out fear so we continue doing the work of the law of the Spirit. This is a recipe for nonviolent resistance, not authoritarian control.
Love, Not Authority
Romans 13:1-10 ends with a call to love because love is the fulfillment of the law. Love does no harm. The Roman Empire was nothing but harm. Harm is how it instituted what it called order.
Especially in the harried life created by empires to keep people struggling to survive so they do not have the energy and time to do anything to stop them, love is the one thing we can always do. In almost every circumstance, love costs us nothing. It is just the simplest care and concern for our community to help us all get through the lives we are called to live.
Paul always insists on love instead of authority, because God is love, and love is how we show we are followers of Christ.
The Law of Empire and the Law of the Kin-dom
There is a big difference between the law of empire and the law of the kin-dom.
The law of the empire is the law of a person’s will. In an empire or any other kind of authoritarian state, power rests in a few who dictate their will upon the masses. This was the nature of the Roman Empire and the kingdoms that followed it up until the democratic revolutions of the 1700s. The law of empire is always dictated by the corrupting forces of fear, greed, and lust for power. It is a solipsistic and narcissistic drive to control others for one’s own personal benefit.
The law of the kin-dom is different. Jesus rooted the law in love: love of God, love of our neighbors, love of one another. The main rubric for our action is to do to others as we would have them do to us, and not to do to others as we would not have them do to us: the gold and silver rules. A law rooted in love always thinks in us and our, not I and my. Its focus is on the benefit to the many while not neglecting the needs of the few. There is a harmonic balance that exists under the law of love that does not exist under the law of empire.
We are called by the risen Christ to live under the law of the kin-dom, no matter what other circumstances we find ourselves facing.
Acts 5:29 and the Law of the Spirit
In Acts 5:29, Peter and the apostles proclaimed that we must serve God rather than men. This verse is often taken out of context as well, meaning that whatever we believe to be the will of God supersedes the will of the place that we live, and thus we can engage in violence and terror in order to get our way. That is clearly not what the apostles intended.
Following the will of God and serving God means to continue in the law of the Spirit, the law of love. To love God with all our hearts, minds, and spirit, to love our neighbor as ourselves, and to love one another so that we show that we belong to Christ. These three things define us, and anything that interrupts this love to bring fear, terror, trauma, harm, violence, or disorder to the world is a rejection of the law of Spirit.
If we are to inherit the kin-dom, Jesus tells us that we must seek righteousness. We must hunger and thirst for it. That righteousness is right relationship, one with another and with the world itself. Any system that turns righteousness into petty morality or an estranged ethics that has no connection to the law of the Spirit and love has bastardized the work that we are called to do.
We are not called to bow the knee to anyone. The Living Christ said:
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you” (John 15:13-15).
What did Jesus command us to do? To love. So those who love are Christ’s friends. Friends do not bow to one another. They do not serve one another. They live in mutual relationship with each other. Why anyone would want to sacrifice their friendship with Christ in order to obey him as liege boggles my mind.
The law of the Spirit breaks the very notion of authority, making us all friends.
What This Means in a Democracy
Once we bring to this problem our understandings about democratic processes and representative government, then everything changes. Under the Roman Empire, there was no freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, or right to redress the government for grievances. It would take 1700 years for those ideas to arise, but they decimate this passage.
In a democracy, authority shifts from the government to the people. The will of the people, as communicated through votes, consensus, or whatever mechanism it uses has the power over the state, and thus the state itself becomes a subject of the higher authority of the people which, in this model of thinking, is the will of God to maintain order.
Now, empires violate this passage, and authoritarian states no longer may wield the sword of the state. The sword of the authority belongs to the people now, and anyone who works against that is working against the order established by God.
If this passage is of any importance to us anymore, then that is what it would mean now. Since we know that Christ’s kin-dom is not of this world, and that we are not awaiting a fiery end of days, then this passage may have no real function in our faith and practice anymore. It is a voice in the tradition, and we have the right and ability to say how much authority it should have in the tradition any more.